'We Have To See That We're On The Downward Swing' FIU's Dr. Aileen Marty's Thoughts On Re-Opening South Florida
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Many people are wondering when leaders will begin the process of re-opening South Florida, which remains the epicenter for coronavirus in the state.
Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease specialist at Florida International University, said in a video statement on Saturday that a number of factors must be considered.
"To be able to reopen, we have to see that we're on the downward swing of the epidemiologic curve, that we brought the reproductive number below one. And that takes time. It's not a matter of plateauing, that's too early. It's a matter of actually being on the other side of the curve. So it takes surveys and studies to see what's happening in our community," she said.
Marty said also in consideration is with the measures we are taking, what are the projected number of cases.
"Do we have enough beds, general hospital beds, ICU beds, ventilators, medicines, trained personnel, with the numbers of people expected when we stay in lockdown versus when we lift the lockdown because lifting it will almost invariably lead to some additional contagions. So we have to calculate that into our figures," she said. "Can we manage it, that's important."
Dr. Marty said the next thing that must be taken into consideration is how to proceed.
"What is the particular mechanism that you're going to apply, and how quickly you're going to be able to surveil. And to do that you need testing. And that means that you're going to have to test not just the individuals that are symptomatic, but every single close contact, that means, for example, all the household members of anyone who's positive," she said.
"We need to detect those asymptomatic cases and isolate and treat them until such time as they're no longer shedding virus into the environment. And that's a crucial piece of the puzzle that we haven't been applying and need to apply very, very swiftly so that we can do this in a systematic way. Then we can release people into the population that are safe to be out there but who should nonetheless be taking those measures that we've already spoken about, such as wearing masks, and trying to stay a six-foot distance from other people," she added.
As for the opening of the schools, Marty said there is talk of how to do it in a safer manner.
"A lot of communities are now talking about staggering children going back to school so that the hours are such that you have fewer numbers of children per classroom, to again, try and maintain that social distancing as much as is feasible," she said.
Marty concluded that there are going to challenges but the better we do this, the sooner that we can reopen things.
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